Alaska Seafood Nutrition, Safety, and Flavor Issues, News, Facts

Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute

Pure Waters, Pure Fish

Alaska is
thousands of miles away from large sources of
pollution that can contaminate the human food supply in other parts of the
world. These distances, combined with the earth’s patterns of circulation of
water and air, help to ensure that Alaska’s own waters are among the
cleanest in the world.

Alaska’s
human population density is the lowest of any in the United States, and
lower than most places in the world. Alaska has little heavy industry, and
has strict regulations governing development activities, such as road
building, mining, logging, and sewage treatment. The State of Alaska
Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) has a regulatory section
dealing specifically with water quality. Water discharges, such as sewage
and other potential pollutants, are closely regulated to ensure high water
quality. In addition, ADFG requires prior approval for any in-stream
construction activities in Alaska’s salmon streams through the authority
of the Alaska statutes known as the “Anadromous Fish Act” (Alaska Statute
16.05.870). Alaska also has a Forest Practices Act requiring buffer zones
from logging along salmon streams to prevent erosion and protect spawning
and rearing habitat. Clean marine habitats produce pure seafood
products.

A good way
to judge the cleanliness of a body of water is to examine the sessile
(non-moving) organisms that live there, such as mussels and oysters. Since
1986, the U.S. National Mussel Watch Project of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Status and Trends (NS&T)
Program has been doing exactly that. The program is growing, and there are
well over 250 sampling sites distributed throughout the coastal United
States. Every two years, either mussels or oysters are tested for the
presence of 44 different kinds of petroleum hydrocarbons, and other
pollutants, such as metals, pesticides, and PCBs. NS&T sampling near
Alaska’s fishing grounds have shown no human-caused contamination. The
Alaska sites, including two in Prince William Sound, all ranked among the
25 sites with the least petroleum contamination in the USA. Alaska sites
are not considered to have high concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons,
PCBs, or pesticides.

Years ago,
worldwide concern forced a ban on certain organic chemicals, such as DDT
(a pesticide) and PCBs (a class of industrial chemicals). Before and since
those bans took effect, DDT and PCB were found at levels of concern in
many marine organisms around the world, but not in Alaska seafood. Many
studies (3, 4, 5, 6, 7,) conducted by both government and
university scientists over the course of decades have repeatedly
demonstrated that Alaska seafood is pure and clean, with little to no
traces of contaminants. Contaminant levels that constitute a public health
concern, as determined by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA),
have never been approached and Alaska seafood is routinely purer than
products from other parts of the world.

The Cook Inlet region of Southcentral Alaska near Anchorage is the most populated
in the state. Studies performed for the U.S. Minerals Management Service
report that Cook Inlet’s waters and sediments are remarkably free of
hydrocarbons and metals. One of the research teams, University of Alaska’s
Environmental and Natural Resources Institute, said “The physical,
chemical, and bioassay results of this study show that Cook Inlet has very
low environmental concentrations of hydrocarbons, and that sediments and
water are generally free from toxicity. Results also show no immediate
evidence of heavy metal pollution in Cook Inlet.”

As the marine habitat in Cook Inlet is extremely clean, so is Cook Inlet’s
seafood. Like most regions of Alaska, Cook Inlet is home to Alaska Natives
and others whose lifestyle is based on harvest and consumption of local
foods, especially finfish and shellfish, at levels higher than those
consumed by other Americans. In order to assess the potential risks of a
subsistence diet based heavily on seafood, the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a comprehensive study of Cook Inlet seafood species. King salmon, sockeye salmon, chum salmon,
halibut, sea bass, cod, flounder, as well as other subsistence food species, such as kelp, snail, and clam were studied. The results indicate finfish
and shellfish in Cook Inlet are as clean and wholesome as any that the EPA has ever tested.

This conclusion was supported by the State of Alaska’s Division of Public Health. Their own independent study of traditional (Native) foods,
conducted for the entire state, recommended “the continued unrestricted consumption of traditional subsistence foods in Alaska.” ADEC also tests the
cleanliness of Alaska seafood. ADEC tested a variety of species including salmon, halibut, king crab, and snow crab. The results showed that none of
these species approached FDA’s level of concern for arsenic, chromium, cadmium, lead, and nickel.

ADEC also routinely checks both raw and processed seafood products for bacterial contaminants and fecal coliform, and consistently finds that bacteria
are virtually non-existent in Alaska seafood.

Alaska’s marine habitats are extremely clean, and Alaska’s seafood is pure and remarkably free of contamination by pesticides, petroleum derivatives,
PCBs, metals, and bacteria.

Good News: Contaminants Very Low
in Alaska Fish
By Joyce A. Nettleton, DSc, RD.